Laura Loves: Laura Bailey's Weekly Edit

Each week, model, photographer and Vogue contributing editor Laura Bailey shares her most-loved things of the moment - from her everyday skin saviours, to the wardrobe staple to shop now (and to pack for holiday) and the London play not to miss. Delve into her picks of the week, below.

Murtha’s stolen moments - tough lives and times infused with a monochrome romance via infant innocence and rebel teens, '70s/'80s grit sweetened through the rituals of work and community, pub and club. Soho is memorably captured in the London by Night series (1983) alongside two decades worth of studies of the North East, Youth Unemployment an evocative record of a time of social crisis which, for Murtha, photographing her home town of Newcastle Upon Tyne, was both personal and political.

Prager, whose photographs are here shown alongside 10 years of work in film, builds, casts and manipulates her own hyper-real worlds, both worshipping and unpicking Hollywood’s golden dreamscapes and archetypes. Layering and reimagining references real and fake, Prager plays with and produces our paranoia from the inside out, glamour a fragile construct and her American dreams not at all what we grew up believing in.

It’s always tempting to talk about - and test - the new and the (pretty) promising. But I’m mindful of sharing everyday secrets - what I buy on repeat and recommend to friends. My brilliant facialist Ūna Brennan, who I’ve seen for 20 years (no point in listing her contacts - those who know know, and her waitlist is full for the foreseeable future or until she trains an army of young apprentices), first recommended Skinceuticals when I was pregnant and endured every possible different skin type over the course of a month - and these are the two star products I’ve stuck with since, though they’re all excellent, and with a little research, it turns out my girlfriends all have their Skinceuticals favourites too (mostly scored on Amazon these days).

My morning ritual - after cleansing and before moisturising - a few drops of CE Ferulic Triple Antioxidant treatment patted over face and décolletage (treat your neck as you would the shadows beneath your eyes), and then once a week (or month, or whenever I remember), a thick layer of the B5 Masque left on for as long as possible, especially restorative after flying.

Not new or shiny and no PR jazz. Just works for me, especially after sunbathing on my daughter’s sports day in a heatwave last week, when I forgot my hat, sunblock and picnic.

Wear

A white sundress. Having recently given most of my wardrobe away (I can breathe again), I have reconnected with what I actually need and want to wear, especially when travelling. No more carnival piles of vintage flower print, ragged bikinis and almost identical pairs of dungarees. I’ve decided that a swimsuit (Les Boys Les Girls), a pair of shorts and a white sundress are the basic ingredients of a weekend - or month - away. (Plus a straw hat, an armful of bangles and a denim shirt). I love last year’s off-the-shoulder Isa Arfen cotton dress with a sash, which crisscrossed Europe with me as a get-out-of-trouble beach to party look. (This year’s versions are now on sale at Matchesfashion.com).

And Zimmerman’s Iris dress and the Farrah by Isabelle Fox (ethically handmade in London) are new white dress crushes. (Okay, they all also make versions of the perfect little black dress but that’s a different story). June is prime time to snap up a high-street bargain in the sale - River Island is worth a speedy white sundress cruise, and I can’t resist the racks of vintage cotton nighties in my favourite local charity shops (my forever favourites cost less than £20 and I don’t just wear them to bed...)

I first saw this play - which tells the story of the Good Chance theatre company founded by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson amidst the heartbreak and chaos of the Calais refugee camp in 2015 - at the Young Vic at Christmas. Written by Murphy and Robertson and directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, The Jungle is set in a place of hope and tragedy, music and madness. All bulldozed 18 months later but now resurrected (twice) on stage to inspiring - and politically provocative - effect. Look out for John Pfumojena‘s extraordinary embodiment of the trauma of exile, and a grateful nod to the late A. A. Gill for bringing the camp’s cooking (and thus the whole community) into powerful focus via his Sunday Times review: "Isn't this how all places once began? With refugees stopping at a river, a beach, a crossroads, and saying, we'll just pause here for a bit. Put on the kettle."

Up too late home alone and acting like I was fine with the fact that my gang were at Beyoncé/Jay Z whilst I’d been a good girl at my son’s school charity bash. And suddenly not tired at all and just doing a little midnight present shopping. Definitely not for me, but still... It’s a Stella London moment with the starry opening of her shiny-new flagship store on Bond Street, and no harm in a little late night research.

But on those rare days when I leave home with pretty much just my camera and my dog, this is all I want and need. Torn between the scarlet Star and the white Falabella, this is the ideal gift - in theory for my girls of summer but also, more selfishly, white for tennis, red for a Beyoncé gig...? (Just looking - from afar).